Woman says Shermantine attacked her in Feb. 1998

"If the jury would've listened to me and believed me, Cyndi Vanderheiden would still be alive."

Jordan Guinn

"If the jury would've listened to me and believed me, Cyndi Vanderheiden would still be alive."

Those are the words of 51-year-old Lisa Pisano, who says she was raped by convicted killer Wesley Shermantine on Feb. 14, 1998, on a rural road off Highway 26.

He stood trial for the alleged assault later that year in Calaveras County but was acquitted. Pisano said the jury did not convict Shermantine because his attorney attacked her character, and crucial evidence was lost by investigating authorities.

Vanderheiden's remains were recovered in February from property previously owned by Shermantine's family.

The discovery was made after the death row inmate disclosed the location where he and former friend Loren Herzog disposed of her.

With her voice trembling in a telephone interview earlier this month, Pisano talked of being raped in the passenger seat of her own car. She spoke openly of her opinion of the condemned man.

"(After it was over), he pulled me out of the car and slammed me to the ground and told me he wanted me to hear the heartbeats of the families he buried there," she said.

"I wish they would hurry up and put him down."

Shermantine, who has been on San Quentin's death row for 11 years, was no stranger to Pisano at the time she says he attacked her.

The two had known each other for several years, and both had children in the same grade at San Andreas Elementary School. She had attended birthday parties for Shermantine's son on the Calaveras County property where human remains have been unearthed.

She had gone to pick up Shermantine the night of the assault because he was drunk and needed a ride to his mother's nearby home.

Pisano arrived at the bar and waited for Shermantine. She eventually met up with him and followed him in her car as he drove his truck through a torrential downpour to his mother's home.

Upon reaching the house, Shermantine left his truck, yanked her from the driver's seat and drove away in her car, Pisano said.

"Then I hear my car come back and he threw me in the passenger seat and we went down Highway 26," she said.

Shermantine pulled over on North Shelley Road and told her to take her clothes off, she said.

Terrified, Pisano did as Shermantine demanded. She said he committed several sex acts.

Afterwards, Pisano said she needed to use a bathroom, but Shermantine said guns were pointed at her and she would be shot if she left the car.

Pisano said she then was put in the driver's seat and told to take Shermantine back to his mother's house. She dropped him off, and he told her not to report what had happened to anyone.

She drove to her home, locked the front door behind her, fell to her knees and cried.

But the ordeal wasn't over. Shermantine showed up shortly after and stayed for several hours, she said.

"He smoked methamphetamine off a piece of tinfoil and sucked the vapor through a straw," she said. "He called Loren (Herzog), but he never showed up."

Pisano called authorities the following day to report the attack, and she believes Shermantine was brutally beaten shortly after her assault by people she knew.

"They beat the tar out of him," she said.

But justice for Pisano wouldn't come in the courtroom.

Part of the reason Shermantine walked away on the rape charge, Pisano said, is because evidence was mishandled by authorities.

"He left a threatening message on my answering machine that they lost," she said. "My trial was a big joke."

Shermantine has denied the accusation and claimed the two had a consensual sexual relationship, a notion Pisano rejects.

"His wife was my best friend," she said. "I was never his girlfriend."

Shermantine denies killing anyone and maintains he helped his childhood friend Herzog dispose of people he had killed.

Pisano became paranoid after the attack.

"I stacked soda cans by my front door so they would make noise if the door opened at night," she said.

Despite not landing a conviction, Pisano was called to testify about the alleged sexual assault during Shermantine's murder trial in 2000.

However, she was not allowed to use the word "rape" during her testimony because Shermantine was not convicted of the crime.

Although still devastated by the trauma, Pisano sees symbolism in the date Shermantine was convicted of the murders of Vanderheiden; Howard King, 35; Paul Cavanaugh, 31; and Chevelle "Chevy" Wheeler, 16.

It was Feb. 14, 2001 - three years to the day after she was attacked, she said.

"I think he (Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa) did that for me," Pisano said.